If you are currently pleading with a roommate/landlord/significant other for a puppy, print this off and stick it on the fridge: Turns out Troy, a Doberman pinscher who competed in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show earlier this month, alerted his owner to a malignant lump in her breast.

Presumably, that secured him a lifetime of sleeping on the bed whenever he wants.

"One night he was curled up between us in bed. He kept nuzzling up against my left side." Troy's persistent nosing triggered an allergic reaction. "I itched myself, and then I popped up in bed and said, 'Holy cow! What's this?'" She felt a lump in her left breast that was already three centimeters in diameter.

She got it checked and, sure enough, it was malignant. But they caught it early enough for a double mastectomy and chemo, and now she's cancer-free. Papazian believes if it weren't for Troy, the outcome might've been different: "If the dog had come a month later or if we hadn't taken him, I don't know what would have happened."

"People get scared of Dobermans, but he's got the sweetest personality," she added.

It might sound a little scientifically sketchy, but there's actually serious research on the subject. There's a research team at UPenn, for instance, working with dogs to detect ovarian cancer. And one thing's for sure: A team of specially trained cancer-sniffing puppies would certainly be a marked improvement, emotionally, over a radiology center.